Brooke Eden and Brandi Carlile join Proud Radio with Hunter Kelly on Apple Music Country to discuss coming out and authenticity. Brooke Eden opens up about how her friend Mickey Guyton encouraged her to speak up, and talks about coming out with her partner Hilary and acceptance in country music. Brandi Carlile discuss queerness, religion and how public rejection was foundational to her becoming an artist. Listen to the episode in-full anytime on-demand on Apple Music Country here.
Brooke Eden on her friendship with Mickey Guyton and how Mickey encouraged her to speak up
“I met Mickey when I was 18. We were standing in line to try out for American Idol in the middle of the Atlanta heat of the summer. My mom was standing next to me. She was like, ‘Dang girl, that hair is bad.’ And Mickey overheard us talking about having a bad hair day. And Mickey came up to me and was like, ‘Hey girl, I know you don’t know me, but I heard you talking about your hair and I have a straightener in my backpack. I will plug it in and straighten your hair for you.’ And I just thought, what a cool chick. Like, what a great human that we’re both buying for spots to go to Hollywood and be a part of American idol. And you walk up to a stranger that you’ve never seen in your life and offer to share your hair straightener with her. What an incredible human. And we were friends from that day on. We both got to go to Hollywood and spend that week together and it was so great. And then we found each other back here in Nashville and I’m so proud of her. She actually – this is a really funny story – she came over about a year ago, it was right before the pandemic and Hilary was gone for the weekend and she was like, ‘Girl, I’m coming over and I’m making you homemade chocolate chip cookies.’ And I was like, ‘That sounds incredible,’ such a sweetheart. And that night she played ‘Black Like Me’ and ‘What Are You Gonna Tell Her.’ Of course, I’m just sitting there speechless, like ‘Mickey, you’re finally saying all the things that you’ve been feeling for so long,’ and we’ve been friends for a long time and Mickey’s like, ‘I as a black woman need to speak up and you as a queer woman need to speak up.’ And for so long, we’ve been silenced. And I feel like that night, she felt like she needed to encourage me to be myself and because she was so empowered to be herself and wanting to empower me to be me. And it was just the beginning of those conversations with my label who had already encouraged me to be me and just getting this music out that was fully authentically me.”
Brooke Eden on coming out with her partner Hilary and being authentic
“It all started, we [Brooke Eden and partner Hilary] were on a trip to Sedona. It was just this freeing energy that all of a sudden when we got there, we used to go on vacations a lot because in the beginning of our relationship, we were told by members of my team, who are no longer on my team, that we could be in a relationship in our houses and that was it. So we would leave Nashville a lot so that we could just be ourselves and hold hands walking down the street without the fear of someone seeing us. And when we got to Sedona, we would always used to post a lot of pictures individually, not together. And when we got to Sedona, there was just this open feeling where I was just like, ‘We can’t do this anymore.’ First of all, I’m a country singer. Country music is all about authenticity. How are we supposed to tell a true story of real life without being authentic to who we are?“
“I was reading this book called ‘Untamed’ by Glennon Doyle and she had a paragraph about integrity. She said, integrity is when you are on the outside who you are on the inside. And I realized that I was kind of living this double life. I had no integrity. I was one person in our home and to our close friends and family members, and then I was a completely different person to the outside world. And I was begging for this world to change without being a part of the change. Last year, I was able to really dig inside and be very introspective about my own values and what was important to me. And I realized, and with Hilary, we realized that it was important for us to share our story. We can’t ask for the world to change without being a part of that change, and together we decided it was time.”
Brooke Eden on coming out to her label
“My record label got bought out by BMG a few years ago. And with that change, we had all this new leadership and these leaders were coming from very progressive cities like New York and LA, and their internal conversation at the label was ‘We love Brooke and we support her as a queer woman, as a queer artist, and we want that to be a part of her story, because that is who she is.’ I remember Jon Loba and Zach Katz, who was the head of the label at the time, took me out to dinner and I was so nervous about telling him that I was queer. He was like, ‘Just to let you know, I already know and I love you, and we as a company, love you. And we want to give you this freedom of being yourself, because we think that you will make your best art when you’re given the opportunity to be yourself.’
“That moment sitting there with those two heads of my label and that almost permission to be myself, set me on such a journey in giving my own self-permission to be myself. It really came out in my music and it really came out in my life. I just had this new sense of just happiness and freedom, and that allowed me to do my best work.”
Brooke Eden on acceptance in country music
“It’s been amazing. The support and love that we’ve received has just been beautiful. And I’m just so happy with where not only our genre is going, but also just where the world is going. We just don’t have the energy anymore to hate people loving each other.”
Brandi Carlile on religion and public rejection being foundational to her becoming an artist
“It’s a faith that kind of asks for a very public sort of profession. You’re supposed to come up to the front. People have their eyes closed, and you go up to the front and you get saved. And then everybody opens their eyes, and you’re standing there. And there’s a lot of these moments of public accountability that happen within that faith and that church structure. And that was a normal part of my teenage years. Ironically, I wasn’t there with my parents. It’s something that my brother and I did kind of on our own. And I did those things. And I was in a really small town, and those kind of public moments were really traumatic for me because I felt compelled and like I had to somehow. And I knew something was pulling me towards a higher power and a belief in something greater than myself, but I didn’t know how to name it. I know how to talk about it. I certainly didn’t think that what would happen to me happened to me, in terms of my baptism. I’m still recovering from that. Every time I talk about it, every time, even right now, which is that I did one of those very public declarations that I was ready to be baptized. And I was a teenager. And you go through like a week of training and lunch with the pastor and you talk about spiritual accountability and a whole bunch of other dogmatic crap. And at the end of the week, it was time for me to be baptized. And I had my swimsuit on underneath my clothes, and my family was all out in the church. And I went there and the pastor used that moment to tell me that he wasn’t going to do it, and I had to leave in front of all of those people. And it’s just indelible on my memory, that very public rejection, but it opened up these flood gates in my life for expression of pain and rejection by pulling people towards me, fans and audience members and congregants, and getting people to come to me and be a part of that rejection is probably foundational to why I am an artist.”
Brandi Carlile on being a queer Americana artist
“I think that country music serves a part of who I am, really foundational, fundamental part of who I am. It always feels like a retrospective. It doesn’t feel like always who I am now, but I sort of deserve the right to be that girl sometimes. And sometimes I write country songs, and sometimes I’m allowed to write country songs with really great country writers too. I think I fancy myself an Americana artist, like just a roots music-based kind of flamboyant, fundamentally queer Americana artist. And sometimes I dip my toe into rock and roll and alternative, sometimes into pop, sometimes into soul and R&B, sometimes into country music, and I don’t know how to stay inside the lines. But when I am country, I know that girl.”
